This is the next installment in my series of Quick Tips for photographers.

It seems that every photographer wants to have a great image of the moon in their collection. Why? Because it’s there! And because it’s cool!

Most people that set out to shoot the moon expect that it will be hard to do, that you will need to use long exposures, and maybe even a tripod. In short, they expect to have to shoot it like any other night time shot. Using a tripod is always a great idea if you want to make really sharp images, but for the moon it’s not strictly required. In fact, shooting the moon is more like a daytime shot rather than a night time shot.

Photographing the Moon

Although it may be counter-intuitive, the moon is actually very bright. We can only see the moon because it reflects the light of the sun. That means that the Sunny 16 Rule is actually a great starting point to make images of the moon.

The moon is not quite as bright as a sunny day, so you will probably want to add at least 1 stop of light to the exposure that you calculated using the Sunny 16 Rule to get it just right. So instead of 1/ISO at f/16, you might try f/11 instead.

Modified Sunny 16 Rule for Shooting the Moon:
Aperture = f/11
Shutter = 1/ISO

An equivalent exposure that I like to use for shooting the moon is:
f/8 @ ISO 200 and 1/400th of a second

I like these settings because ISO 200 provides a nice clean (noise-free) images for most modern cameras, and 1/400th is easily hand-holdable unless you are using very long lenses.

NOTE – if you want to zoom in tight on the moon then you will need to use an extremely long lens. In that case you will absolutely want to use an equivalent exposure that includes a very fast shutter speed.

For example, I occasionally use my 400mm lens with a 2x teleconverter to get an equivalent focal length of 800mm. In that case I want to ensure that I get at least 1/1000th of a second to get tack sharp images. To do so I will typically open up the aperture to f/5.6 and also increase my ISO to 400. Doing so allows me to use a shutter speed as fast as 1/1600th of a second.

An equivalent exposure for shooting the moon with long lenses:
f/5.6 @ ISO 400 and 1/1600th of a second

As in all exposure decisions you will want to salt to taste depending on your particular equipment and environment…

A final word on shooting the moon:

Most people that make images of the moon do so when the moon is full. That’s actually the most boring time to shoot the moon, because the entire moon is lit up and it ends up coming out flat and boring. The most interesting images of the moon are taken when only part of it is lit, which is about 1 week before or after the full moon. In this situation the moon is only partially lit which makes the texture from the craters on its surface really pop because the shadows behind them are visible.

This trick is also true for many other forms of photography.

If you want your subject to look interesting, only light part of it!

This is the next installment in my series of Quick Tips for photographers. This one is an oldie but a goodie…

Sometimes your camera will be confused by the lighting conditions around it. In those cases it’s always a good idea to have a feeling for a good starting point for what the correct exposure settings to use will be.

Way back in the olden days (before histograms and light meters were built into the camera), photographers had to do this in their heads, and they had to do it all the time. They developed lots of rules of thumb to help. Here’s one that you can used to determine the correct exposure on a bright sunny day.

The Sunny 16 Rule

On a bright sunny day, if you set your aperture (or F-stop) to f/16, then the shutter speed required to get a good exposure will simply be 1 / ISO.

Some modifiers for this rule:

• If you are at a white sandy beach or shooting in snow then you may need to stop down by 1 stop to cut glare and reflections.
• If your background is darker or there are important areas of the scene in the shade then you may need to open up by 1 stop to fill in the shadows.
• You may have to “salt to taste” to get an exposure that matches your creative expectation!

NOTE – If you need a refresher on Aperture, F-stop, Stop Down, or Open Up, then check out my earlier post on Apertures and F-stops.

For the Advanced Class

f/16 at 1/ISO should be considered to be your starting point, and you can always add salt to taste if you want to change the look of the image (Tip – use the histogram on your LCD to check your exposure). You can also use that exposure information to calculate a whole series of equivalent exposures depending on the creative decisions you want to make.

For example, if you want to blur the background then you might want to use f/2.8 instead of f/16. In this case you simply need to figure out how many full stops brighter f/2.8 is than f/16, and then take away that much light be increasing the shutter speed or decreasing the ISO.

Every time you move either the Aperture, the Shutter, or the ISO from one of the standard settings in the table above to the adjacent setting to the left of it, you are “Stopping Down” your exposure by 1 full stop, which means you will use half the light of the previous setting. As you move to the right you “Open Up” by 1 full stop, which means you will get twice as much light. If you Stop Down the aperture by one stop, then you must Open Up the Shutter or the ISO by one stop in order to maintain the equivalent exposure.

A practical example: Moving from f/16 to f/2.8 is 5 full stops more light. To achieve an equivalent exposure you would have to take away 5 stops. You could do that by Stopping Down the ISO or the Shutter. Changing the ISO from 3200 down to 100, or increasing the Shutter Speed from 1/4 sec up to 1/125th sec are equivalent moves.

NOTE – Modern cameras allow many more choices for Aperture, Shutter, and ISO. They generally allow adjustments in half, third, or even quarter stops. It is very important that you understand how much you have to change to affect your exposure by a full stop! And as always, practice makes perfect!

I’ve seen lots of talk about histograms in the blogosphere lately. I’ve been meaning to post some quick tips about using the histogram for quite awhile (because I get asked about it all the time), so seeing these other posts has prompted me to finally do so.

But wait, there’s more! I’ve actually taken this as an opportunity to to kick off a series of Quick Tip posts about photography that I will gradually release over the coming weeks. These are all based on a bunch of reminder notes that I’ve saved over the years that helped me remember some of the finicky little details about photography. These things aren’t always obvious to new users, and they really helped me out as I learned the craft. Fortunately they are also really easy things to share!

So here’s the first one…

Using a Histogram

NOTE – If you don’t know what an image histogram is, go to Wikipedia’s Histogram article first. In short, a histogram is simply a relative indicator of how much of your image is dark, or light, or somewhere in between.

• Right Side – Indicates the brightest parts of the image. If the curve touches the right side of the chart window then parts of the image may be pure white or overexposed.
• Left Side – Indicates the darkest parts of the image. If the curve touches the left side of the chart window then parts of the image may be pure black or underexposed.
• If the chart touches both sides of the chart window at the same time then the scene is very contrasty. You will have to choose to expose correctly for the dark parts of the image, the light parts of the image, or somewhere in between. But you can’t possible expose for everything at the same time. You could also consider shooting a bracket and blending the exposures in post (eg. shoot for HDR).
• If you want to “Move to the Left” (or make the image darker) then increase the shutter speed, increase the F-stop (which actually means to use a smaller aperture), or use a lower ISO setting.
• If you want to “Move to the Right” (or make the image brighter) then decrease the shutter speed, or decrease the F-stop (which actually means to use a larger aperture), or use a higher ISO setting.

Windows Vista has a really annoying habit of changing the way that it displays files in folders in Windows Explorer (or My Computer) based on the content in those folders. For example if a folder contains pictures it tends to show small icons (or thumbnails) instead of a simple list of files. And the default view for other file types tends to be a list of file names that doesn’t display any of the other details about the file, such as that date that it was changed or the file size.

Even more annoying is that Vista doesn’t respect the file folder view that you have selected (in the Folder Options dialog) if the contents of a folder changes. For example, if I have a folder that contains only text files that is set to show “All Details”, and then I add some pictures to that folder, Vista will automatically change the view to the “Pictures” view.

I honestly don’t know anyone that prefers to see their files as icons, and I personally want to see all the other details (sometimes called metadata) about my files all the time.

I finally found a permanent fix for this problem. Instead of detailing it here, I’m just going to provide a link to the source of the solution. They even provide a downloadable REG file that you can execute to automatically fix it for you. So, click the following link if you want to see the “All Details” view for all of your folders on all of your drives, all of the time.

Note that this is another Vista tip that I assume will also apply to Windows 7, but I haven’t been able to test that yet. I’ll get back to you sometime on or near October 22nd!!

UPDATE Oct 27, 2009 – This trick is definitely still applicable to Windows 7, and it works perfectly!

I’ve noticed this issue for as long as I’ve been running Windows Vista… I’ll be happily typing along when all of a sudden my keyboard starts spewing out random characters instead of what I’m expecting. The most annoying switch is when I get an accented e (é, from French or Latin) instead of a question mark (?).

Well it finally annoyed me one time too many, so I figured out the solution. I’ve long known that it has something to do with the keyboard layout that you have selected. This selection is buried in the Control Panel under the “Regional and Language” settings. Of course it would be too much to ask for this to be included with the “Keyboard” settings… It will only occur if you have more than one installed keyboard layout AND if you have a shortcut enabled to switch the keyboard layout.

By default the keyboard shortcut to change the input language is enabled with the key combination “Left Alt + Shift”, and the keyboard shortcut to change the keyboard layout is enabled with the key combination “Ctrl + Shift”. That makes total sense because I’m sure nobody ever presses Alt and Shift or CTRL and Shift at the same time. (Editors Note – Sarcasm Applied)

Fortunately if you disable either one of these things then your random keyboard troubles will disappear. Let’s do both:

Remove Unused Keyboard Layouts

• Go to your Control Panel and open “Regional and Language Settings”
• Switch to the “Keyboards and Languages” tab and select “Change Keyboards”



• Before doing anything else, ensure that you have the desired keyboard selected. For most of my readers that is most likely to be “US“, but if you are in a different country or use a different primary language, your preference will be different.



• Select all other keyboards layouts other than the one you wish to use. The default installation of vista seems to include the “US” Keyboard as well as one or two other layouts specific to the country you told Vista that you live in when you first installed it. I’m Canadian so all of my computers have “Canadian French” and “Canadian Multilingual Standard” installed.
• Click “Remove” to delete these keyboard layouts.

Delete the Hotkey combination that changes Keyboard Layouts

• Click on the “Advanced Key Settings” tab
• Select the “Between input languages” setting in the Actions window, then hit the “Change Key Sequence…” button



• Choose “Not Assigned” for the “Switch Input Language” AND for the “Switch Keyboard Layout” settings, then click “OK”
• Click “OK” all the way out. You may need to reboot your machine to lock in this change

Well, that’s it. It may seem like a lot of steps (and it is for such a ridiculous setting), but it’s fast and easy to do and it will eliminate lots of headaches!

This is another one that I assume will be the same in Windows 7, but I haven’t been able to test it yet. I’ll get back to you sometime on or near October 22nd!!

UPDATE Oct 27, 2009 – This trick is definitely still applicable to Windows 7, and it works perfectly!